02 November 2012

I pulled in with the van just before ten on Tuesday and unpacked it into my parent's garage by myself. It took awhile, but nowhere near as long as loading it did. I put the heavy boxes on the bottom and the few light ones on top. While I dread moving again, and want a bit of a break, I hope they're not in there too long.

The small amount I did bring into the house is still packed. That's a job for a rainy Sunday.

Last night I walked to the pub before going home. It was quiet and candlelit and both the fireplaces crackled in the dim light. The staff were a touch too chatty, but it didn't matter. I found a small corner and wrote and thought. From where I sat, the pub could have been empty, which is just what I wanted. I was going to go home after two pints, but a good song came on so I stayed for a third.

29 October 2012

We sat on the balcony last night and drank Ardbeg. The sky began crystal, and Orion's Belt twinkled above the sea to the east. Jupiter shone just above it. The moon loomed high in the south. The night was bright, lit by the moon and the stars. It was cold, too, but the whisky warming. We spoke more about the future than the past, which is for the best. It clouded over, seemingly from nowhere, and we finished our drams and threw the glasses into the sea. The last Braydram at Shorehead.

I'm so ready for this chapter to finish. I'm moving on. But my finger's still saving the page.

28 October 2012

I slept in the extra hour this morning. My phone reset itself, so I wound my watch back. The clouds hung low, a grey ceiling over St Andrews that suited the waning days of October so well that I didn't miss the sun at all.

I started with my books. There are many. It's a healthy balance of read and unread. I hate putting them in boxes. They do no good there. Placing Chandler and Faulkner away where they can't be read feels like betrayal, or censorship.

My paperwork came next. Endless statements, bills and scraps. I keep them out of some sort of fear that were I to burn them, I would immediately be required to produce them again for some manner of desperately important Bureaucratic necessity. I all but poured the contents of my desk into one box, including the annotated draft of my unpublished novel. I labelled that box as 'not for the garage'. That big purple binder needs to be on my desk again as soon as possible.

Amidst all these bits and pieces are the memories that come with them. A piece of paper from a tasting four years ago, the host now dead two years. It comes back with perfect clarity; a dinner in London, a lunch the next day. The food; the wines; the measured, wise conversation. The company.

I'm no hoarder by any means, but that's why I keep these things. Bits of paper that unlock so much more than what's scribbled on their tattered leaves. I'm packing memories away, but taking a long, lingering look at them beforehand.